Danièle Fogel, PhD

Founder & Owner

Herbs have accompanied me my whole life—from the lemon verbena my mother used to give me to ease inflammation caused by menstrual cramps, to the arnica cream that was a staple of our household to heal bumps and bruises, to the thyme inhalations used to quell inflammation and congestion in the lungs. However, I wasn’t aware of the tenor of my relationship with herbs until I answered their call to begin learning more about them. When I began my formal herbalism studies, I only then started to understand the depth and significance of humans’ connection to herbs.

My herbalism journey since then has consisted of identifying herbalism practices in my own family, and connecting to these practices and more from my ancestral lineage, which is Sephardic & Ashkenazi Jewish, with roots in Greece, Turkey, France, and Eastern Europe. This journey has been one of developing relationships with plants from my ancestry, as well as with plants in the ecosystem where I grew up on unceded Ohlone land/the Bay Area, California. 

For me, studying herbs has enabled a reclamation of ancestral connection, a reckoning with land justice issues and its implications for healing, and an empowering process of re-learning the way of the herbs and crafting herbal remedies for myself and loved ones to support health, balance, wholeness, and overall wellbeing. Opening up to the wisdom of the herbs and re-learning this ancient medicine has helped me to experience a profound sense of connection and belonging to the natural world, and has transformed my life forever.

Inspiration

Though I started on my herbal path prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, I experienced a heightened sense of urgency at the start of the pandemic to re-learn nature-based skills, such as how to grow food and the medicinal properties of herbs. With the privilege and responsibility of having access to land, I was able to resource myself, loved ones, community members, and neighbors with the abundance of the earth as I grew food and herbs as medicine during this stressful and uncertain time. Continuing these practices today, Yervika is the result of deepening my relationship with plants and re-learning nature-based skills including herbalism. The herbs have guided me to an understanding that these skills are particularly needed in industrialized countries and communities who have become disconnected from the reality that our health is intricately intertwined with the health of the earth. 

Bringing nearly two decades of experience as an educator, I created Yervika as an expression of love and dedication to bringing herbalism into garden-based, permaculture, and other earth-care initiatives so that more people have access to re-learning the way of the herbs: for sustainability & regeneration, for connection & belonging, for honoring ancestry & decolonial practices, for our collective health & wellbeing, for empowerment & self-determination, for greater self-sufficiency, and for more thriving futures.